Editorials

Millennials change home, car buying habits

If the book "On the Road" helped define the spirit of young people 50 years ago, an equivalent book today might be called "On the Phone," and it would come in the form of a tweet.

Millennials don't buy cars the way young people of earlier generations did, and it seems the connectivity permitted by smartphones has decreased the need for a car. But 20-somethings are also not buying houses the way their parents did -- hence the label "generation rent" -- and they tend to value access more than ownership.

The Great Recession is at least partly responsible for the relative decline in car and home purchases among young adults. Higher levels of unemployment and stagnating wages naturally led to a decreased ability to make big purchases.

But something else appears to be happening among millennials, something more fundamental and long-lasting, and it could reshape major parts of the economy. The stereotypical image of the young, urban, tattooed, eco-conscious adult biking to work represents realities that will reverberate well into the century, and marketers, manufacturers and city planners are being forced to change their thinking about what young people want and how they live.

The Internet has made sharing things like cars easy to do in many locations. Concern over climate change has caused lifestyle shifts for many young Americans. Cities across the country have seen young professionals move back to downtown areas, where public transit and bicycles make for less expensive and more convenient modes of getting around. And smartphones and laptops have made getting around in the physical sense increasingly unnecessary.

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The auto industry is an enormous part of the economy, which has caused some concern about how declining interest in cars might affect the nation's economic future. But ineluctable social and technological forces are not to be reversed, only adjusted to.

The changes surely come with benefits for older generations. For those who continue to drive, look for congestion on the roads to ease.

New coordinator pushes Buffs to work, play at level he expectsJim Leavitt has discovered this much about his new defense at Colorado: He has some talent with which to work, but his players need to put it in another gear. Full Story

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